And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him.
Joshua the high priest before the angel of Yahweh-Accused by Satan, but justified by Yahweh through Messiah the coming Branch.
He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord. Joshua as high priest (Haggai 1:1) represents "Jerusalem" (Zechariah 3:2), or the elect people, put on its trial, and "plucked" narrowly "out of the fire." His attitude, "standing before the Lord," is that of a high priest ministering before the alter, which had been erected previously to the building of the temple (Ezra 3:2-3; Ezra 3:6; Psalms 135:2). Yet, in this position, by reason of his own and his people's sins, he is represented as "standing before" the Judge on his and their trial (Numbers 35:12).
He showed me - "he" is the interpreting angel. Jerusalem's (Joshua's) "filthy garments" (Zechariah 3:3) are its sins, which had heretofore brought down Gods' judgments. The "change of raiment" implies its restoration to God's favour. Satan suggested to the Jews that so consciously polluted a priesthood and people could offer no acceptable sacrifice to God, and therefore they might as well desist from the building of the temple. Zechariah encourages them, by showing that their demerit does not disqualify them for the work, as they are accepted in the righteousness of another, their great High Priest, the Branch (Zechariah 3:8), a scion of their own royal line of David (Isaiah 11:1). The full accomplishment of Israel's justification, and of Satan the accuser's being "rebuked," was as yet future (Revelation 12:8-10, Satan the accuser, at the ascension of Christ as our Advocate above, was to be "cast out" of heaven unto the earth; and, 20:2-3,10, he is hereafter to be first for 1,000 years chained, and then finally cast into the lake of fire and brimstone forever and ever). Compare Revelation 11:8, wherein "Jerusalem," as here, is shown to be meant primarily, though including the whole Church in general (cf. Job 1:9).
Satan - the Hebrew term meaning "adversary" in a law-court: as Devil is the Greek term meaning Accuser. Messiah, on the other hand, is "advocate" for His people in the court of heaven's justice (1 John 2:1).
Standing at his right hand to resist him - the usual position of a prosecutor or accuser in court, as the left hand was the position of the defendant (Psalms 109:6). If Satan stands at the poor believer's right hand to accuse, Messiah "stands at the right hand of the poor to save him" (Psalms 109:31). The "angel of the Lord" took the same position, "standing on the right side of the altar of incense," just before another high priest was about to beget the forerunner of Messiah (Luke 1:11), who supplants Satan from his place as accuser. Some hence explain Jude 1:9 as referring to this passage: "the body of Moses" being thus the Jewish Church, for which Satan contended as his by reason of its sins; just as the "body of Christ" is the Christian Church. However, Jude 1:9 plainly speaks of the literal body of Moses, the resurrection of which at the transfiguration Satan seems to have opposed, on the ground of Moses' error at Meribah; the same divine "rebuke" (cf. Zechariah 3:2 here with Jude 1:9), "The Lord rebuke thee," checked Satan, in contending for judgment against Moses' body, as checked him when demanding judgment against the Jewish Church, to which Moses' body corresponds.